267 
same time increases its population, who does not see that 
it nourishes in its bosom a thousand seeds of dissatisfac- 
tion and malignant discord ’ After calculating with 
soienliftc accuracy the amount of phosphorous in a pau- 
per’s brain and nervous system, and the quantity that 
must yearly enter his mouth taken from the soil, we pre- j 
dieted long ago the present Know Nothing movement 
against foreign laborers and competitors in New England 
and New York. The lack ofscience, and the wrong done 
to arated land, are the true sources of a thousand social 
and political evils. These have their living-roots in the 
Earth, and no where else. Looking with deep solicitude 
to the future wants of the children attending our common 
schools, we said : 
“It is not far from the truth to say, that 400,(300 of the 
700,000 children now attending our common schools are 
destined to become practical operatives in the great art 
ef making into grain, grass, roots, milk, butter, 
cheese, fkt, lean meat, bone, or some of the numerous 
other products of rural labor, JF/ia-e that something can 
be found, and Amt? the raw materials of all cultivated plants 
should be combined, so as to give the largest return for 
any given amount of capital and labor, are problems in 
practical husbandry, which science alone can solve. The 
term scie/ice is but another name for knowledge. It is, 
however, usually limited in this connection to the system- 
atic investigation of the laws ot nature; and of all men, 
the practical farmer is most interested in understanding 
and obeying these wise and salutary laws. 
“To make an acre of wheat that will yield 20 bushels, 
the plants must have twelve pounds of phosphorus, lo 
purchase that amount of this subsUance, which forms one 
of the constituents of ihe human brain, at a druggists 
shop, will cost ^21 At present prices, the phospliorus 
and ammonia annually thrown away in the solid and 
liquid excretions of man and his domestic animals, in this 
State, are worth some 620,000,000. 
“All the farmers of the Empire State should rise up as 
one man, and insist that the science of good husbandry 
and that of keeping property, shall be taught in all their 
common schools. The same mental culture which will 
enable an honest tiller of the soil to double its products, 
and double the value of his belter directed industry, will 
also qualify him, in a good degree, to keep and enjoy a 
much larger portion of the nett proceeds of his more skil- 
ful industry. 
“Science is the greatest leveler in the world ; but unlike 
the leveling of ignorance and brute force, it ever levels 
v.jncard. It takes the highest point of mental attainment 
already achieved for its standard ; and then wisely and 
humanely elevates all below up to that standard. The ob- 
ject is to make the triumph otmind over matter universal 
and complete.” 
This object is as important at (he South as it is at the 
North; and, therefore, the argument is not out of place in 
the Southern Cultivator. Nor is the South entirely free 
from the tendency to over stock the professions of Law 
and Medicine, Mercantile, and other unproductive (in 
one sense) pursuits. Hence, the following historical facts, 
and calmly considered suggestions, may be worth the 
space they will occupy: 
“It is now' 26 years since the friends of agricultural im- 
provement first made a vigorous effort to establish an ag- 
ricultural College in this State. Your Committee have 
before them an essay published in 1819, in this city, 
(Albany) of 42 pages, advocating such an institution with 
unanswerable arguments. Within the lost 26 years, there 
has been taken from the public treasury about 6200,000 
to prepare candidates for legal honors to study successful- 
ly the science of law. We have also four well endowed 
IMedical Colleges, now drawing .-$5,000 a year besides, 
indeed, . we have so long jiaid a large bounty' on all 
!)rai!che.s of unproductive industry, so called, that no 
young man of luinorable aml ition will consent to toil and 
...sweat, and burn in thi; suu on a farm, for Sl2 a month, 
when as a clerk in a store, a bank, a broker’s office, oi as 
a student in a doctor’s or lawyers’s office, he can expect 
s<)on to command five dollars to one of the industrious 
tarmer, and with one filth of the severe bodily labor. Is 
it possible for all .ambitious young men to become profes- 
sional gentlemen, and not render these professional pur- 
suits utterly valueless '? If Icvarning and science are the 
great highways lo honorable distinction and public favor, 
’ wiiy deny' these advantages to those wlio do more than all 
others to feed and clothe the whole community T’ 
Planters, think of the education of your sons, and wise- 
ly determine wdiat position y?ou will have them occupy in 
an age of advancing agricultural literature and science. 
Nothing is easier than to give them an elevated stand- 
point, whether for making and keeping property, or com- 
manding suffrages and applause of their fellow-citizens, 
in after-life. Receive not unkindly this hint, it is more 
than possible to neglect human cultivation. Such neg- 
lect will tell injuriously, both on a family, and the public 
at large. Nothing would strengthen Southern interests so 
much as the more general and thorough education of those 
who ov/n the soil. It is a trite saying that “knowledge 
is power;” but truism as it is, there are thousands of 
voters, and sovereign rulers, who do not understand its 
bearing on tb.e educational institutions ol lire country. 
The improvement of these is, somehow, a most difficult 
reform to accomplish, although, confessedly, one that is 
much needed. What is wanted, in addition to all that the 
public now have, is the plain and effective application of 
science to all the industrial arts practiced by civilized 
man. Such an application of all the knowledge extant, 
would detract in no respect from its dignity or honor, 
while it would utilize it a thousand fold Place science 
in the heads and hearts of the people, instead of keeping 
it out of their reach, and they w’ill love and cherish it, as 
parents do their own children. The real difficulty lies in 
reaching the masses. It will ever give us pleasure to 
meet them at their county Fair^ and county Courts, and 
talk over the true interests of the human family, whether 
in cultivating n>un, or the earth from whicli he was taken, 
and to which his dust muj.t return. If it were possible to 
j talk to the whole people, and cxpia;in atlength what agricul- 
! tore most needs at the South, to put to shame Northern 
j fanaticism, we feel confident that our humble plea for ag- 
ricultural education would not be in vain. A kind Pro- 
vidence smiles upon Southern tillage, and proclaims the 
duty of planters to take the lead in the professional in- 
struction of agriculturists on this continent. Do you not 
feel the inspiration which forbids you to follow the Do- 
Nothings at the North, who are fast dividing all their 
moral and physical powers between fifty conflicting im- 
placable factions 7 We have studied these factions pretty 
closely, and might do the public a worse service than to 
analyze and describe them, but we will not. It is not our 
mission lo complain of popular folly anywhere; but a 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
